In recent years, information on the Internet is readily available anywhere using, for example, i-mode™ provided by NTT Mobile Communications Network, Inc. (NTT DoCoMo).
However, although such a portable terminal allows information on the Internet to be readily obtained anywhere, because the construction of display means is simplified for purposes such as reducing the size of and saving energy for the portable terminal, the displayed information is rather simplified compared with a display on an ordinary personal computer, hardly achieving an information service which is fully satisfactory for the user.
Accordingly, in order to provide detailed information while continuing to reduce the size of and save energy for the portable terminal, an arrangement can be proposed in which, by a combination of a portable terminal and a printing apparatus, rough information is displayed on the portable terminal while detailed information is printed by the printing apparatus. However, the arrangement using the combination of portable terminal and printing apparatus faces several technical problems which must be solved.
For example, since the printing apparatus is large in size and is hard to be carried with the portable terminal, in order to print the detailed information, ordinarily, the printing apparatus will be used provided at home or at office. However, use of a fixed, particular printing apparatus would hardly allow information to be readily obtained anywhere. In order to achieve this, it is required that either the size of the printing apparatus be reduced to such an extent as to allow carrying it, or an arbitrary printing apparatus be allowed to be used. The former is not feasible because it is technically very hard to achieve at this stage. The latter is not feasible either because each printing apparatus requires a unique driver, thus requiring that the portable terminal be embedded with drivers for each of the printing apparatuses to be used.
Furthermore, for example, when such a print service is provided, the service provider needs to receive from the user the service charge as the price of the print service. In this case, when the user prints data using a printing apparatus and receives the printed material, for example, it may be such that the user pays the service charge in accordance with the number of prints. However, when the number of prints is large, manual counting would take energy and time, and also tend to cause miscounts. In case of a miscount, it is impossible to specifically notify the user of the service charge. Meanwhile, in an arrangement in which counters which count the number of prints is provided in printing apparatuses in order to count the number of prints, each of the printing apparatuses needs to be provided with a counter, incurring an increased cost. Furthermore, in accordance with such a payment method, in order to receive the printed materials, the user needs to carry enough money to pay the service charge; if the user does not carry enough money, the user is not allowed to receive the printed materials, hardly allowing information to be readily obtained anywhere.
Accordingly, the present invention has been made in view of the problems yet to be solved by the conventional art, and an object thereof is to provide a data output control apparatus which allows detailed information on a network to be readily obtained, which is advantageous with respect to cost, and which is suitable for specifically notifying the user of the service charge.